Conventionally, there have been disclosed various methods in which a part of a medium surface, where magnetic ink characters (MICR characters) are printed, is read by using a magnetic head so as to obtain a magnetic regeneration signal for the purpose of character recognition. The magnetic ink characters (MICR characters) are used for checks and the like to be used in financial facilities. Character types thereof typically include E13B and CMC7, and the character types are standardized by ISO 1004 and so on.
At the initial stage in the history of development of the technology for recognizing MICR characters, a major method for character recognition involved reading a magnetic character line by using a magnetic head, inputting a waveform of the magnetic regeneration signal into a logical circuit, and then recognizing the character according to characteristics of a peak position and an output level in the waveform of the magnetic regeneration signal. However, in association with technical advancement of the performance of microprocessors as well as enhancement of memory units in relation with their high-speed operation and large capacity, character recognition by processing a magnetic signal with software has been increasing these years. Furthermore, examples of character recognition include some cases in which not only a magnetic signal but also an image captured by scanning a medium are used together.
In a disclosed method in which a magnetic signal is used, a waveform of a magnetic regeneration signal of a character is compared with a standard waveform prepared in advance for each character, as it is. Then, the character is identified according to its similarity in the comparison (For example, refer to Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).